China on eve of politburo changes

Updated
November 15, 2012 08:55:00

The Chinese communist Party is about to usher in a new leadership team in Beijing. The new politburo will be announced at the Great Hall of the People in the Chinese capital today. Analysts say that while the majority of faces will change, the nation's policies are expected to remain as they are.

TONY EASTLEY: The changing of the top order of the Chinese Communist Party will go ahead today with military style precision - nothing out of place and the cadres all in a tight line.

What the changes will herald is open to speculation but the whole idea is for the politburo to change without any fuss.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell has been at the Great Hall all this week watching the proceedings and he joins us now.

Stephen, if you would, run through the top end changes as we expect them.

STEPHEN MCDONELL: Oh look there may be the appearance of it all being in line and very straightforward. But today's revelation has been the culmination of quite big battles behind the scenes from various factions within the Communist Party.

Now it remains a tightly secret - who is going to come out today. And the world will see the cabinet, the standing committee - the people who are going to be in charge of a quarter of the world's population.

We don't know yet but here's my list who I think is going to be on it.

So we've got Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, they'll be there for sure, the top two. Then the man who has been handling the US-China economic dialogue Wang Qishan, he'll be on there pretty much for sure.

That leaves a few other positions and the most likely candidates are Zhang Dejiang who was brought in after disgraced Bo Xilai, all the things that happened with him, to take over Chongqing and sort the problems out there.

The propaganda chief from the central committee Liu Yunshan and then the heads of Tianjin, and Shanghai respectively, that is Zhang Gaoli and Yu Zhengsheng.

Now if I'm right and that's who's on the team, that will mean the most high profile liberal candidate will miss out, that's Wang Yang from Guangdong, as would Li Yuanchao from the organisation department.

And the only woman who had a chance was Liu Yandong but it means she misses out too.

It would make for what people will probably describe as a kind of conservative or cautious team but nevertheless a highly skilled group of people.

TONY EASTLEY: If Xi Jinping gets the top job as everyone expects, will he be the sort of leader to pull the power back into Beijing or is he likely to devolve power to the provinces? Is there a risk there?

STEPHEN MCDONELL: Well he may even if wanted to devolve more power to the provinces. The real difficulty there is the further you get from Beijing the worse the corruption is. And we heard president Hu Jintao warning the Communist Party at this congress that corruption could bring it down, they could lose power.

So even if he thought that was such a good idea I think for that reason alone he is probably unlikely to do it.